photography — Page 6

a penny for the old guy 2

posted on 05/11/2014

Vienna, 1933. Bill Brandt.

The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy

I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

rose

posted on 31/10/2014

today’s daily snap: halloween sky

posted on 31/10/2014

grant faint daily snap
Canada/halloween sky. Daily snap for 31 October, 2014 from Grant Faint.

geraniums

posted on 29/10/2014

geranium nikon d7000

china: two daily snaps

posted on 29/10/2014

From 2013 — two daily snaps by Grant Faint.

grant faint china

today’s daily snap: in varanasi, india

posted on 29/10/2014

Daily snap for 29 October, 2014 from Grant Faint.

vladimir sokolaev: life in the soviet union

posted on 27/10/2014

Two photos by Vladimir Sokolaev, from a series on daily life in the Soviet Union. The first is from 1979 and titled ‘Elder sister, Siberia.’ I can’t find identifying information for the second.

polaroid self-portraits by stevie nicks

posted on 27/09/2014

From the 70s file: Stevie Nicks art directs herself. From the Guardian:

A collection of self-portrait Polaroids shot by Fleetwood Mac legend Stevie Nicks will go on display at a New York City gallery next month after languishing in a shoebox for decades.

“Some people don’t sleep at night. I’m one of those people,” Nicks said in a statement about the photographs. “I would begin after midnight and go until 4 or 5 in the morning. I stopped at sunrise, like a vampire. I never really thought anyone would ever see these pictures.”

The exhibit, 24 Karat Gold, curated by Eurythmics guitarist and Stevie Nicks collaborator Dave Stewart, accompanies a new album from Nicks, which will be released under the same title. The album, like the portraits, is a time capsule unearthed: the songs were written and demo-ed between 1969 and 1987, but re-recorded in recent months.

The Guardian spoke to Peter Blachley, owner of the Morrison Hotel Gallery, where the exhibit takes place next month, about the show.

[. . .]

She said that she took the pictures to “learn how to be a photographer”. To me, many of the images look very sophisticated, like the work of a pro. Is she just being modest?

I think she was really being her own muse in terms of how she wanted to see herself. She sort of opened up this wonderful treasure chest of clothing and furniture and accessories, and all the things that she would have had around her to create these little worlds of fashion, and how she saw herself.

From a photographic point of view, if you look at those Polaroids, at the photographs, of course this is before digital and today it’s a lot easier to take digital self-portraits because the cameras auto-focus, they auto-color, they do everything. Even those early Polaroid cameras that she was using with a cord – in the shot where she’s in the swimming pool you can see the cord in her hand as she’s clicking the shot – in every other shot she’s disguised it very well.

So I think even though she was learning and experimenting, she was very sophisticated in her knowledge of composition, her knowledge of framing, her knowledge of color. Because the shots are just beautifully art directed.

eugene atget

posted on 04/04/2014

Six photos of Paris by Atget, from two books: Paris – Eugene Atget published by Taschen and Atget by John Szarkowski, published by MoMA. The latter book includes 100 plates with text by Szarkowski, much of which I found overwritten to the point of being intrusive. A typical example is his last paragraph accompanying the first photograph in the gallery below; it adds a layer of speculation that is not only indulgent, it distracts from the experience of viewing the photo.

Across the street from the Gobelins factory is a department store. Department stores changed the traditional ways of commerce and social interchange, and were therefore perhaps as unsettling and offensive to Atget–on the level of cultural and political principle–as shopping malls have been in our time to photographers such as Robert Adams. Nevertheless, it is wrong and self-defeating to photograph badly the subjects of which one disapproves. In fact, for a photographer as serious as Atget, it might be necessary to photograph a subject as well as he can before he knows what he thinks of it.

While Szarkowski does provide valuable context to many of the photographs, he too often, in passages like the above, tries to dazzle us with his references and asides, but ends up competing with Atget on the page. I much preferred the essay ‘Archive of Visions – Inventory of Things’ by Andreas Krase in the Taschen book.

tony ray-jones: through a looking-glass

posted on 21/10/2013

The front cover of the book Tony Ray-Jones by Russell Roberts features a quote by Ray-Jones: ‘I have tried to show the sadness and humor in a gentle madness that prevails in people. The situations are sometimes ambiguous and unreal, and the juxtapositions of elements seemingly unrelated, and yet the people are real. This, I hope, helps to create a feeling of fantasy. Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think that perhaps it is possible to walk, like Alice, through a looking-glass, and find another world with the camera.’

Which of course he does.
These are just a few photos from this very fabulous book. Take a look.